Magic helps spread anti-bullying message in Dryden

By SASHA AUSTRIE
      Staff Reporter

     A chorus of "Wow! How did he do that?" emanated from the Dryden Middle/High School auditorium Thursday.
     James Warren, a magician from Ithaca, held court at the auditorium and, more importantly, held the attention of approximately 150 seventh-graders while performing his Magic with a Message program, which discourages bullying.
     "I was very impressed," said Rebecca Tice, a foreign language teacher and co-facilitator of the school's character education program. "The kids were truly amazed."
     She said Warren "wove the magic and the message incredibly well."
     Warren, who moved to Ithaca from Hollywood, California about six months ago, said he wanted to use his magic to do more than entertain.
     For 12 years Warren has walked into schools across the country, leaving anti-bullying/tolerance, anti-smoking and peer pressure messages in his wake.
     "It's good for kids to hear (the anti-bullying message)," said Larry Hinkle, assistant principal of Dryden Middle School. "It is unfortunate that (bullying) happens."
     At Dryden Middle/High School, Warren was delivering his message of anti-bullying to sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders.
     "I thought it was interesting," said Evan Canfield, 12.
     Canfield was one of the volunteers for Warren's demonstration on how a bully can make a person feel small. Canfield was instructed to not move and the audience was asked to look at a dot on a black-and-white spinning wheel, which was placed in front of the seventh-grader's face for almost 20 seconds. When the wheel was moved, Canfield's head appeared to shrink.
     "When bullies try to make themselves look big by making someone else look small, that is an illusion, folks," Warren said. He also used the wheel to make seventh-grader Felicia Caraballo's head appear to swell, as she was portraying a bully with a big head.
     Warren used such props as a newspaper page and a mirror to help convey his message to the children.
     Warren held up a mirror in a small bag and pushed a knitting needle through it saying, "If someone calls you a name, let it go right through you."
     Warren told the audience that bullies don't often 'attack' if they are by themselves.
     "They don't get enough out of it that way," Warren said.
     "We can be easily influenced by other people," he said. "Nobody influences us more than our friends."
     Warren shared a personal bullying experience with the students to let them know there was hope.
     "I was bullied a lot myself in school," Warren said.  "This is a personal mission in the anti-bullying message."
     To end the presentation, Warren had one final trick. It wasn't an illusion or sleight of hand -- it was a principle of physics. Warren used physics to show the students that victims of bullying feel suspended.
     "You feel there is no way out, you feel like you are going to crash," he said.
     Caitlynn Ross, 13, volunteered to come on stage. Warren made her hold a metal washer, which was attached to a string. The other end of the string was tied to a cup. He suspended the string over a stick, and when Ross let the washer go, the cup only fell halfway to the fllor.
     "This is not a magic trick," Warren said. "This is a principle of physics. Centripetal force."
     Ross, who was bullied because she was a "little overweight," said she "ignores bullying or tells someone about it."
     Felicia Caraballo, another of Warren's volunteers, said she always felt "small."
     "Last year, a kid kept calling me names because I was short and small," she said. "He kept throwing my stuff on the floor."
     Caraballo said the program was "cool" and recommended it be used at other schools.